Wordsworth’s contemporary, and his ally in the enunciation of a new turn in poetry, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is now known better as a critic and essayist – or even perhaps as an opium addict. But he wrote one poem which deserves to be remembered, and which was indeed a staple of school literature courses until the last quarter or so of the last century. Then, as Bloom puts it so graphically and so often in Genius, his account of 100 writers deserving of that name, the study of literature was replaced by the study of politically correct texts.

Bloom does not include Coleridge in his 100 studies, and this is understandable. Still, given some of the relatively incomprehensible if innovative continentals he includes, I suspect the average reader would find The Rime of the Ancient Mariner more accessible.